Boccaccio '701962

Four legendary filmmakers direct some of Europe's biggest stars in BOCCACCIO '70, a landmark anthology film. Mario Monicelli (BIG DEAL ON MADONNA STREET), Federico Fellini (LA DOLCE VITA), Luchino Visconti (THE LEOPARD) and Vittorio De Sica (BICYCLE THIEVES) direct Sophia Loren, Anita Ekberg, Romy Schneider and more through four stories. Modeled on Boccaccio's "Decameron," they are comic moral tales about the hypocrisies surrounding 1960s Italy. Monicelli's RENZE E LUCIANA (cut out of the original American release) is a tale of young love and office politics in the big city. Fellini's notorious LE TENTAZIONI DEL DOTTOR ANTONIO features Ekberg as a busty model in a milk advertisement whose image begins to haunt an aging prude. Visconti's IL LAVORO stars Romy Schneider as a trophy wife enduring her husband's very public affairs, and De Sica's LA RIFFA raffles off a night with Sophia Loren to a lucky ticket holder during a small town fair. Bursting with passion and sly satire, BOCCACCIO '70 is a glittering showcase for some of the greatest talents in movie history.

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These are magical. What inspiration that tells us the quinessential Italian spirit- that Italians are lovers! To live is to Love! Fellini's film was metaphysical in showing that this pious, moralist's fears and nightmares were in fact a lie to smokescreen his true desires! What is love but stronger than money? And all those men gambling on a lottery over a hottie! Being paraded over womanzing such a hottie and heralded as a hero! Amazing.

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These are magical. What inspiration that tells us the quinessential Italian spirit- that Italians are lovers! To live is to Love! Fellini's film was metaphysical in showing that this pious, moralist's fears and nightmares were in fact a lie to smokescreen his true desires! What is love but stronger than money? And all those men gambling on a lottery over a hottie! Being paraded over womanzing such a hottie and heralded as a hero! Amazing.

My interpretation of it is that the outward and blatant sexual aspect of each of the four episodes of this cinematic anthology is a mere superficial veneer, a literary artifice, if you will, that is used as a vehicle for a biting commentary on modern social life, a life disrupted and transformed by the emerging corporate and technological forces impinging upon the individual.

Although the outward social situation portrayed in each episode appears to be so different from the others, it seems to me that there was, at some level, a unified coordination behind the production of this film, ensuring that the social commentary portrayed by the film as a whole film was consistent, in some respects. Yet, each individual episode voices this unified social commentary from its own unique perspective.

The sexual aspect of the film as a whole is the common point in each episode that is used as a symbol of the basic humanity of the individual. Hence, it is during the execution of the sex act itself that the individual is stripped of all his assigned social roles, and their attendant assigned social personas, and where the individual is most closely in touch with his inner, true, genuine self. It is also during the very execution of the sex act where an individual can find a time in his life that is outside the scope, and the purview of impinging societal forces.

This film was skillfully constructed to project a superficial appearance, greatly along outwardly sexual themes, to ensure the commercial viability of the film, a superficial appearance that would appeal to the masses of the ticket buying public who hunger for simple entertainment. Yet beneath the veil of this general public appeal, lies a carefully constructed harsh social commentary that provides much fodder for intellectual, and artistic analysis for the minority of film viewers who are inclined to such reflective thinking.

Boccaccio '70 (1962) is a truly remarkable cinematic achievement for many different reasons, at least in my opinion.